Any potential dangers?

I've been blasting a long time and done hundreds, if not thousands of runs with no issues, but recently bought a large tube that holds approx. 160-180 grams of material and have never used a tube this large.
I generally grind material down with a coffee grinder and did a run yesterday. It took one can of butane before it even started to spray anything out and I ran 5 cans through it.

My question is: Can this be a potential explosion type hazzard with the butane hanging around for so long? I take good precautions, only blasting outside and no electronics around at all (No phone, no lights on, etc) So I think i'm probably cool, but still wanted to check in with you all.

There is always a risk.As soon as you hit a product with a non polar solvent you instantly eliminate anything polar.Cannabis and other natural plant products contain many polar compounds which act as expectorants and nucleation points for all these other compounds which you really do not want in your system.The one reason why it can be proven that marijuana is actually beneficial to your lungs is because of the polar components they act as nucleation points and expectorants.
Now if you leave those behind you end up with a sticky waxy substance if you were to rub it between your fingers it turns to almost like a glue. Now if you don't have something that will allow that to nucleate(polar compounds)and its just gonna stick to your aveoli than you got issues.When your doing a water wash your washing capsule's protected by wax off the plant. In good bubble hash you should be able to see the individual trichomes unbroken so the water never has the chance to touch those polar compounds. There not released until there vaporized. Quote from Jim.

So when you press your hash you exposing these natural polar compounds to air and water in which they start to decompose and evaporate hence the reason why pressed might smell stronger. As a result you end up with a product less medicinal and harder on your lungs.Hope this helps.

Royal Blue said:

There is always a risk.As soon as you hit a product with a non polar solvent you instantly eliminate anything polar.Cannabis and other natural plant products contain many polar compounds which act as expectorants and nucleation points for all these other compounds which you really do not want in your system.The one reason why it can be proven that marijuana is actually beneficial to your lungs is because of the polar components they act as nucleation points and expectorants.
Now if you leave those behind you end up with a sticky waxy substance if you were to rub it between your fingers it turns to almost like a glue. Now if you don't have something that will allow that to nucleate(polar compounds)and its just gonna stick to your aveoli than you got issues.When your doing a water wash your washing capsule's protected by wax off the plant. In good bubble hash you should be able to see the individual trichomes unbroken so the water never has the chance to touch those polar compounds. There not released until there vaporized. Quote from Jim.

So when you press your hash you exposing these natural polar compounds to air and water in which they start to decompose and evaporate hence the reason why pressed might smell stronger. As a result you end up with a product less medicinal and harder on your lungs.Hope this helps.

Click to expand...

For sure thanks man I appreciate you taking the time to respond. I guess what I was really trying to figure out, is how much more at risk am I by grinding it up to a powder where it is much harder for the butane to pass through the tube and much slower as opposed to if I barely ground it up?

Extacie said:

I've been blasting a long time and done hundreds, if not thousands of runs with no issues, but recently bought a large tube that holds approx. 160-180 grams of material and have never used a tube this large.
I generally grind material down with a coffee grinder and did a run yesterday. It took one can of butane before it even started to spray anything out and I ran 5 cans through it.

My question is: Can this be a potential explosion type hazzard with the butane hanging around for so long? I take good precautions, only blasting outside and no electronics around at all (No phone, no lights on, etc) So I think i'm probably cool, but still wanted to check in with you all.

Click to expand...

We routinely used 1" X 36" columns with a good yield. It usually took about three cans.

The more butane you use, the more you have to dissipate and more important the precautions are. Check out http://skunkpharmresearch.com/butane-safety/

Extacie said:

For sure thanks man I appreciate you taking the time to respond. I guess what I was really trying to figure out, is how much more at risk am I by grinding it up to a powder where it is much harder for the butane to pass through the tube and much slower as opposed to if I barely ground it up?

Click to expand...

Don't pack tube too tight. This causes excess channeling and possibly over pressure.

Yo @Extacie !!! I used to grind my shit up too but I had too much plant matter in my wax. Is your wax green or yella?

Unbleached coffee filters and blast frozen tubes. Yella

You can improve our yield by grinding, but it opens up more plant cell interiors to the solvent, where it will find pigments and chlorophyll. For bragging rights, I loosely break up material into about 1/2" nugs and run frozen, to freeze the chlorophyll and pigments in ice.

In thin to medium films, our bragging rights BHO extracts run from transparent with almost no color, to transparent and honey colored. Any green is chlorophyll.

In thicker chunks they deepen to grey black or amber brown.

If we are extracting oral oil from 10 mesh material, it is honey colored in a thin film and deep amber/opaque in thick films. See attached examples:

I definitely recommend leaving a tiny amount of moisture say 50% or a little drier than curing, so as to lockup the majority of the chlorophyll in ice crystals. Too dry and the green actually comes through ime.

Fadedawg said:

We routinely used 1" X 36" columns with a good yield. It usually took about three cans.

The more butane you use, the more you have to dissipate and more important the precautions are. Check out http://skunkpharmresearch.com/butane-safety/

Click to expand...

thanks dude, I have read that site up and down. Great info on there for sure. Wish they would of had that site several years ago when I first started blasting!

SnapsProvolone said:

Don't pack tube too tight. This causes excess channeling and possibly over pressure.

Click to expand...

Thanks Snaps! Previously I've always done small runs (like 1-2 oz) b/c I've never had to run this much material before. I was trying to treat it in the same manner I did in my smaller runs which didn't work out as well as planned. Was too much pressure, took forever to start spraying out the bottom and was backfiring butane out the end of it lol. Oh well, live an learn. In gonna get a smaller diameter tube to be more efficient as soon as I have the money.

Diabolical666 said:

Yo @Extacie !!! I used to grind my shit up too but I had too much plant matter in my wax. Is your wax green or yella?

Click to expand...

No green, first run came out 50/50 black/yellow, and sort of oily. I packed the tube too tight/ground up too fine and the butane was with the material too long then by the time I was done running the butane through the tube the water the pan was sitting in cooled off. Fail. Lol. Just gonna use that for edibles. My other runs have been yellow or amber. I usually run the lowest micron filter available to avoid any green material, but coffee filters are very low (like 5-20 micron if I remember correctly) so should work just as well. Only issue I've had with coffee filters is blow outs.

Fadedawg said:

You can improve our yield by grinding, but it opens up more plant cell interiors to the solvent, where it will find pigments and chlorophyll. For bragging rights, I loosely break up material into about 1/2" nugs and run frozen, to freeze the chlorophyll and pigments in ice.

In thin to medium films, our bragging rights BHO extracts run from transparent with almost no color, to transparent and honey colored. Any green is chlorophyll.

In thicker chunks they deepen to grey black or amber brown.

If we are extracting oral oil from 10 mesh material, it is honey colored in a thin film and deep amber/opaque in thick films. See attached examples:

Click to expand...

For dude good post. I do that same exact thing! Lol.

SnapsProvolone said:

I definitely recommend leaving a tiny amount of moisture say 50% or a little drier than curing, so as to lockup the majority of the chlorophyll in ice crystals. Too dry and the green actually comes through ime.

Click to expand...

Good point. Thanks man. I haven't had noticeable green come through, but have noticed on average more moisture = higher quality lower yield and less moisture = higher yield lower quality